Are you the breadwinner in your family and feeling guilty because you’re not a stay at home mom?  If you’re a single mother, your chances of being a stay at home mom are slim.  That is unless you hit the jackpot with child support payments or have another income added to your bank account.  Neither of those things happened for me.  I felt guilty leaving my daughter when I headed out to work, but someone had to bring income into the home so bills could be paid.  That someone was me.  Today, I’m going to share a few tips for women breadwinners.  They will leave you smiling and empowered.   

Unfortunately, being a single mother is not easy. However, you must get over your guilt if you’re feeling any.  I missed my daughter’s first step and her first time being successful using the potty because I was working. I finally had to make peace with my situation and accept the fact that I had to provide for us.  After all,  the child support I was receiving barely paid for her child care let alone pay the other bills.

I wondered how working outside the home would affect my daughter.  Would she grow up thinking that moms who stayed at home or who had husbands who provided was abnormal.  I wondered if not having her dad in the home as a role model would affect her negatively.  So many things went through my mind.  When I was growing up, my mother took care of the home while my father worked. You know the traditional woman versus man duties. Mom cooks, cleans, does laundry and dad works, mows the lawn, fixes the pipes.

I soon realized that times had changed.  The work force was full of women who had husbands and children, and still managed to run their homes.  The work force was also full of divorced or single women who also ran their homes, had children in school who were doing well and some had gone on to become lawyers, doctors and whatever else they choose.  I realized that the household that I grew up in was no longer the norm in society.  Women had moved up and on.  They had become multitasking moms and no longer fell into that traditional stay at home role.  We were proudly taking our place as women breadwinners and our current situations.

I also decided that I would never be my mother!  I love her for everything she did when I was growing up, I learned a lot.  She thought my sister and I going into the work force and becoming non-traditional mothers was strange. Now she sees that it’s the new normal.  We have an army of women breadwinners and we are marching with pride.

My daughter and I had several discussions about her father and me having to work to provide for us.  She understood that I wasn’t the only single mother in the world.  She had friends who had single mothers too. I continued to provide and she continued to excel because she had all the love and the necessities that she needed without a father in the home.  Here are a few lessons that she learned:

• A mother’s love is the strongest love on this earth
• She had a strong mother who taught her to be a strong woman and mother
• Welfare and other public assistance is not an option when you’re able to work
• Always work to better yourself and don’t blame others for you decisions
• We don’t live in a perfect world
• Break circles when you need to
• There are children who have fathers in the home who are drunks, drug addicts or who just don’t contribute and live off their wife or girlfriend

So if you’re in the group of women bread winners or sole provider for your child or children, you’re doing your job as a mother.  You will find that it gives you a sense of purpose, and they will respect you for everything you’ve done for them.  Single mothers raised these leaders and celebrities:

• Judge Greg Mathis
• President Obama
• President Clinton
• Mary J Blige
• Pierce Brosnan
• Tom Cruise
• Al Pacino
• Barbara Streisand
• Mariah Carey
• Halle Berry